Hook has you marveling at the nuts-and-bolts work of producers and assistant directors, but never at the intrinsic imaginativeness of the story. It's as if Spielberg calculatedly set out to make a perennial classic -- certain folly if ever there were.

Director Leterrier keeps the camera moving and swooping throughout the film as if the Steadicam were another device in the magicians’ tool belt. A clear sense of space and sleight-of-hand is rarely achieved.

The problem with The Bling Ring is that it feels as soulless as its young protagonists, and of course there’s little sympathy to be found either for the story’s über-rich victims like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

It’s impossible to know how much of Tonto’s story is tall tale or historical fact. The tactic undercuts the film’s attempt at revisionism or at best equalizes men of all races as untrustworthy tellers of of their own history. The Lone Ranger stokes the legend but its smoke signals only add to the haze.

The gifted veterans, Redgrave and Stamp, manage to imbue their characters with personalities and physical bearings that transcend the stereotypical. But there’s little else that separates a film like this from the sing-your-heart-out self-actualizations of a teen show like "Glee."

Salerno spends more time talking to photographers with telephoto lenses who, over the decades, laid in wait for Salinger in the hope of capturing a grainy picture, than he does talking to literary analysts and historians.

Perhaps viewers of the TV show will find more depth in The Snitch Cartel than newcomers to the drama. But without character definition, the film feels like a constant swish pan from one violent event to the next.

This rote buddy-cop action comedy is instantly forgettable. We’ve seen it all before, and worse than that, we’ve seen it done far better in films ranging from last year’s "The Heat" to Eighties classics such as "Midnight Run" and "Lethal Weapon."

As suspicion shifts from passenger to passenger, the film starts to resemble a parlor-room whodunit, while logic becomes its first fatality. Fasten your seat belts before takeoff, because Non-Stop is a bumpy ride.

The Killer Inside Me is hardly uninteresting, and you get the sense that everyone involved tried really hard to pull off this difficult adaptation. But it would be impossible to view The Killer Inside Me as anything but a vast miscalculation.

The thing is, the music that Jed, Shelby, and their respective bands make is actually pretty good. The performance footage is polished enough that it looks like it could be plucked from a TV show like "Nashville."

Across-the-board, the kids are extremely adorable to watch (not an easy thing to pull off) and will appeal to the other kids in the audience who might identify with them and see the story from the kids&#8217; point of view. But looking at this film from any other perspective, will give you brain rot.

Not uninteresting, and it is very nicely performed, although you'll strain to learn from the movie the history on which it is based and struggle futilely to get inside the motivations of its characters.

The kind of film that will be suitable for all-ages entertainment once the family runs out of conversation after devouring all the turkey, but it's unlikely to expand its audience beyond these captives.

Perry tosses everything at his disposal into his movie gumbo, even a completely gratuitous appearance by his signature, self-performed, alter-ego in drag Madea – most likely to set up the premise for his next film "Madea Goes to Jail."

Perelman eases the transitions between the past and the present with echoing phrases and situations, but they all seem rather pat and contrived. Does he really think that repeated refrains from the Zombies oldie, "She's Not There," won't be a dead (so to speak) giveaway?

Creating plot from lyrics, in this case, leads to heavy-handed literalism and limited creativity. The wall of music is amusing for a while, but grows into a loud, wearying assault long before the movie's two hours are up.

Although there’s a strong likability quotient for everyone onscreen here, which ought to keep the movie minimally afloat among its target audience of black viewers starved for a new Tyler Perry offering, Baggage Claim should be left behind at the carousel.

What the movie ultimately demonstrates is that the sum total is less than the individual parts when you add together Rocky, the Terminator, Indiana Jones, Mad Max, Blade, Zorro, Hercules, and the Transporter.

Not even this sprightly cast can buck the privileged sense of entitlement that bedevils this movie. Don’t count on the impish humor that Simon Pegg has unleashed so successfully in other movies to save the day.

One might expect that with such low goals the film might have at least hit its target more often than it does. Schneider's mugging is relentless and his constant need to suddenly transpose himself into another character undermines the story's continuity and progression.

Everything is a puzzle and it's as though Lynch lost track of his reasons for making this prequel and got hung up on filming the sordid details that TV won't allow: shots of peeled-back corpse fingernails; close-ups of oscillating uvulas; visions of strange-looking, backward-talking, gyrating weirdos; and uncensored whiffs of sex, cocaine, and families undone.

Instead of building suspense and tension, Suspect Zero devotes its efforts to creating a weird and creepy milieu that will leave fans of police procedurals wanting and avant-garde enthusiasts scratching their heads.

Aronofsky's reach far exceeds his grasp with this film, and the muddle he concocts makes one wonder if there was ever a solid foundation for The Fountain. Hope may spring eternal, but this fountain is a dry hole.

Usually, I am not so persnickety about such things, especially with first-timers, but the accumulation of mis-matched shots is so great that you have to wonder why some of the more experienced crew members weren't climbing the rafters to say “Whoa, Mel.”

It's not really a matter of Nancy's retro look and grounding in the fundamentals of sleuthing that separates the women from the girls but, rather, this film's lack of gaiety and surprise that makes it dud for old and new generations of the books' fans.

Across the Universe will have ardent defenders, but in the long run, it will do nothing to infuse life into the current mini-revival of movie musicals and is as soft-headed as the wishful refrain “All You Need Is Love.” Maybe that works in real life but not in the movies, sister.

Chow's loyal fans are sure to be disappointed by CJ7, and the film faces one other significant problem in traveling to these shores: Any kid who is the right age to appreciate this pap is going to be too young to read subtitles.

After his disastrous outing in 200X with "The Adventures of Pluto Nash," there was no direction for Murphy to head but up in terms of another space alien movie. Indeed, Meet Dave is a step up, but that's only in relation to Pluto Nash.

G.I. Joe was not screened for critics, but that’s not because of its mindless action and nonsensical plot. It’s because G.I. Joe is the kind of movie that bludgeons the viewer into submission with its loud and constant barrage of sound and fury.

Certainly there are filmgoers who enjoy this kind of noncommittal metaphysical quest. I am not one of them. It makes me think that the filmmaker is more interested in showing us his vacation slides instead of sharing any real insights.

Most unforgivable, however, is the film's coda in which real Georgian victims pose for the camera with pictures of their loved ones lost in the five days of war. Using real people to impart the emotions that the entire film was unable to evince is simply cheap exploitation.

All ends happily for everyone in the movie, but for those in the audience, the experience is so hackneyed that they'll come out feeling like they're wearing shirts that say, "I went to the Acropolis, but all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

Shoddy craftsmanship and uninteresting subjects (it's amazing how tedious some conversations can be when there's no one to put words in the subjects' mouths) sink this spring-break movie faster than an outbreak of Leginnaires&#146; disease on a vacation cruise liner.

The story is so shabbily built that it can make no valid claim to motives other than the filmmakers' mercenary desires to cash in on the public's prurient interests. And even on this bottom-feeder level, Showgirls fails to deliver the goods.

All the advance signs looked discouraging, but I still kept thinking: How bad could a comedy starring Eddie Murphy and Jeff Goldblum really be? Well, let's put it this way &#133; you won't ever hear me asking that particular question again.

The movie is nothing more than a perpetual chain of elaborately choreographed (by returning star Robin Shou) fight sequences that mix live-action foregrounds with complexly layered digital effects and are linked together by the most flimsy and laughable of plot elements.

Beverly Hills Cop III is made with so little spark, humor, and internal logic that it makes me better appreciate these other recent Murphy movies where the actor/comedian at least stretched his persona and attempted something apart from the action comedy mold.

White is cast in this film as a “guardian angel” and adds another level of painful homosexual confusion and stereotyping to the film. Ultimately, all the chafing caused by Gentlemen Broncos is likely to leave you saddlesore.

I’ve seen sick kids exploited for all sorts of reasons – usually as easy ploys to manipulate emotions but sometimes to sell things or encourage philanthropic outpourings – but Letters to God takes the cake (make that the holy wafer).

I really think the entire payoff to the Chipmunks' gambit comes in those inevitable moments when Dave bellows in exasperation, "Alvin." Maybe if we all bellow in unison it will be forceful enough to put an end to this painful film franchise.